


Because Fuckin' Hell, Just Look at Her

by Whowantstoknow259



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Disabled Character, Drinking problems, F/F, Lesbians in a diner eating pie, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Veteran Peggy Carter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-21 05:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6039742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whowantstoknow259/pseuds/Whowantstoknow259
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angie smiles so bright that it makes Peggy forget that she’s pissed about having to walk. It’s a balm that smooths all Peggy’s sharp edges. She can’t always be nice, can’t always be friendly. Sometimes it’s like there’s a petty bitter creature in her and she can’t stop the biting cruelty that falls from her mouth, or the quickness to take offense over nothing, over things that the old Peggy would let roll off her back with a smile. The things she’s said to strangers, her counselor at the VA, the few friends she had, her mom, it’s enough to make Peggy want to die of shame. Not enough to shame into keeping her damn mouth shut though.</p><p>It’s maybe why Peggy keeps coming back, because on the days when that other part of her is close to the skin, it’s not that Angie doesn’t irritate her on those days, it’s that she just understands enough to give her space. Without Peggy even having to ask.</p><p>If the girl had a flaw, Peggy had yet to see it. It wasn’t even that irritating that she was flawless, because fuckin’ hell just look at her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've done some editing. Short version is that the nature of Peggy's injury has changed and I changed a few words in Steve's description, also I edited for grammar but it's still prolly terrible so sorry bout that. Long version at the end.

Peggy hurried down the sidewalk, or rather she attempted to hurry, her bad leg really got in the way of her moving anywhere fast, especially when she was walking. And she was always walking. She was late but not really, late to the only appointment she had that day, but it wasn’t an appointment and she’d never admit to anyone that the only reason she set her alarms on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays was to eat at the 9th Street Diner at 2 pm. Because that just really cast a light on how badly she had nothing going on.

She wasn’t always this complete failure of a human being, once upon a time she’d be not just ambitious, but damn successful. Captain Margaret Carter commissioned Officer in the United States Marine Corp, she’d had a career, she’d had success, hell even her father had finally been proud of his only child carrying on the Carter tradition of the few, the proud. Now all she had was one and a half legs, her mother’s basement, ptsd, and three dui’s. 

The last one was six months ago. On a bicycle. 

Because apparently that’s illegal. 

She’d called the cop a pig and asked him if walking on the sidewalk was also now a crime. The cop replied with a straight face and only the slightest trace of sarcasm “when you’re this drunk it’s called public intoxication ma’am, and yes it’s also a crime.”

So now she walked everywhere, with her stiff prosthetic, and it was pain in the ass both literally and figuratively. A definite sign that she needed to get her shit together. She was an embarrassment to the uniform. 

And now she’s late because she slept through her alarm to get up and woke up ten minutes until two pm. She can’t sleep during the night, even with all the lights on, it’s too dark outside the windows and it makes her body as tight as bowstring to even put herself in a vulnerable position when it’s that dark out. So she’s kinda become nocturnal except for two pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays when she goes out to eat at the 9th Street Diner. Because she’s got a pathetic crush on the part-time waitress.

Her name’s Angie and she’s perky in every definition of the word.

The first time Peggy saw her the only thing she could think was “oh good goddamn” because if the only thing better then her legs was her hips, the only thing better than her hips was her breasts, the only thing better than her breasts was that fucking smile. It was like she was back in college and seeing a girl who made her go ‘thank fucking god I’m gay’ all over again. And all Peggy can do is buy lunch from her.

It’s like she left a good chunk of her courage along with a good chunk of her leg somewhere in the Middle East. Maybe all her courage had been housed in her calf below the knee, maybe the surgeons chopped that out along with the rest of it.

It’s embarrassing and pathetic, like most of Peggy’s post-military life.

But she keeps on coming back.

Peggy gets to the restaurant at 2:15 and Angie is leaning over the counter looking bored. Tuesdays are slow even at peak hours, and right now the whole diner is basically empty. It’s why Peggy chooses this time of day to come. She has Angie’s undivided attention for the whole time.

It’s bitchin’.

Angie smiles so bright that it makes Peggy forget that she’s pissed about having to walk. It’s a balm that smooths all Peggy’s sharp edges. She can’t always be nice, can’t always be friendly. Sometimes it’s like there’s a petty bitter creature and she can’t stop the biting cruelty that falls from her mouth, or the quickness to take offense over nothing, over things that the old Peggy would let roll off her back with a smile. The things she’s said to strangers, her counselor at the VA, the few friends she had, her mom, it’s enough to make Peggy want to die of shame. Not enough to shame into keeping her damn mouth shut though.

It’s maybe why Peggy keeps coming back, because on the days when that other part of her is close to the skin, it’s not that Angie doesn’t irritate, it’s that she just understands enough to give her space. Without Peggy even having to ask.

If the girl had a flaw, Peggy had yet to see it. It wasn’t even that irritating that she was flawless, because fuckin’ hell just look at her.

Peggy slid onto a stool at the front counter, the on all the way at the end, up against the wall. Best of both worlds, she gets a up close view of angie working and she can angle her back to a wall. It’s also easier to sit down and get back up than a booth. Best of all the worlds.

“English!” Angie said cheerily, “I almost thought that after all this time you’d found a better place to get a chicken club.” 

The nickname came from the fact that Peggy apparently is the only person who drinks English Breakfast tea with her chicken club sandwich and fries, instead of coke or something. Apparently that was unusual enough to earn her a nickname. Peggy liked it, a stupid amount.

“Yea well I’m sure there’s a million better places to get a club, but I only come here for the dessert really.” 

Peggy can’t keep the innuendo out her voice.

It’s fucking stupid. She’s stupid. It’s a stupid thing to say and not sexy. But it’s worth it when the waitress blushes and gives a smile like she just can’t help it.

Angie places a tea in front of Peggy without having to ask, and a few minutes later a chicken club with fries appears on the stainless steel serving counter.

“See,” Nick, the short order cook, said, “I told you Ang, if I cook it she will come.”

Angie turned red again and suddenly became very interested in cleaning the counter and straightening the glassware.

Peggy found that very interesting indeed. 

They talked about this and that, Angie telling her about what’s she working on in her MA classes. Another check in the flawless column, smart as a whip and ambitious, a hard worker too she had another job as a TA for her thesis adviser on top of a full time grad schedule. If Peggy wasn’t so goddamn head over heals for her she’d be green with envy. Angie asked lightly about her physical therapy was going and Peggy gave her as light an answer as she could, mostly deflecting. No point in bringing her bitterness into this place.

Angie’s aware that she's missing her leg, the limp and the stiffness of the fucking plastic are hardly subtle. But she's respectful about not talking about it which is real nice.

When Peggy finished her sandwich and her fries, Angie brought her a piece of caramel apple pie, handmade by a bakery down the road. It was fucking ridiculous, the original reason that Peggy started coming to the 9th Street Diner in the first place. The crust was buttery with just the right amount of crisp to it, the apples too, doused in cinnamon and sugar and caramel, and baked just long enough to be soft not soggy. The perfect amount of sweetness, the perfect texture and mouthfeel. It was better than sex.

Well probably it was probably equal to how sex with Angie would be. 

The thought of sex with Angie along with the sensory perfection that was the pie made a small groan escape Peggy’s lips. Because she was a goddamn heathen who shouldn’t be allowed out in public with real people. An embarrassment to the uniform.

But Angie’s eyes were watching Peggy chew and she was bright red. 

The pie might have been why she’d come here in the first place, but Angie watching her eat it was why she kept coming back.

Because good goddamn just watching Angie watch her eat did all kinds of things for Peggy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so although I have personal experiences with ptsd and sudden disabilities, I am not a veteran. So I had my dad, the loose basis of Peggy's dad without the homophobia, look over it to see if it read as believable and to give me his opinion. So Peggy lost her leg, mainly because it's a more common injury, Steve is not a lawyer. I thought that the post lod/discharge advocates would be lawyers but it turns out they're social workers so that's what he is. His one negative comment is that she has too many emotions to be in the marines, but while I've never been in the marines, he's never been a lesbian so whatever. So yeah I changed some stuff and I'm working on the next chapter and also my other works but I've been sick the past two weeks so I haven't had time to do much more than work.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was really nothing else to do in the night anyways. TV was always bad and she’d exhausted the good series on netflix. Might as well start considering options for the future.
> 
> TW ableism

After lunch Peggy walked home, her leg and her hip were starting to hurt in a bad way, the prosthetic chaffing despite the warps and the weight of the thing pulling her hips out of alignment, but she pushed it. Determined to walk home with pause because she’s a stubborn fucker who refuses to let anything stop her. Even her own body and bad life choices. Also because perversely she enjoyed the pain, not in like a kinky way, just a small smug part of her is pleased because things should not be easy or enjoyable, even a three block walk to and from a diner.

She’d lost a lot of muscle mass in her leg, most of it from bedrest and disuse because she favored that side of her body now, plus some rather extensive nerve damage that made what was left of her left leg unwieldy and generally untrustworthy when weight is applied for extended amounts of time. It’s not from the original injury, it just turns out that 10 hours in a fucking sandbox with only field treatment is enough to infect a wound bad enough that recovery was way more difficult that it ever needed to be. It sucks because she was extremely active even before she joined the corps, now everything hurts, swimming is manageable, and bike riding is okay as long it wasn’t over done, walking is difficult and embarrassing unless done slowly, and running is impossible. 

She can’t ride her bike because her mom took it from her like she was a fucking child after the third dui. 

No, not like a fucking child, she was a fucking child. Her mom had paid all three fines, and for the lawyer and Peggy was extremely lucky she was disabled vet otherwise she’d been given a five year jail sentence instead of a $3000 fine, a felony record, and a chance in three years to get her license back if she installed a breathalyzer in her car. In return Peggy had managed get her act together as far as the drinking went and had start going to physical therapy again. She’d only recently gotten round to regular therapy, despite her mom’s hints, subtle nudges, and outright demands, but hey so far white knuckling and bootstrap pulling had managed to get her shit somewhat together so why should she actually have to deal with her emotions. Still she went to group once a month and acted surly and generally unpleasant the whole time she was there. 

Going more often than that, or going to individual sessions seemed exhausting and emotionally terrifying. Plus her mom was at work all day, so she’d have to get herself to the appointments and just thinking about that made her feel more exhausted. Walking to the diner and back, and to physical therapy once a month, wore her out in the worst way. Salem was a sprawling but small city, with a shitty bus system. Getting around without a car or bike was the actual worst.

She really needed to get her mom to give the bike back. Peggy could probably do it if she played up the cripple aspect.

By the time she got home her hoodie was sticking to her because of the light rain, and the dampness was making her feel uncomfortable and cold but sweaty. Before the accident Angie was rather femme, her outfits all skirts or leggings with the odd pair of skinny jeans, she’d wore blouses and would have never wore a teeshirt or a hoodie out in public, her hair had been perfectly curled with a touch of retro glam, and her lipstick collection alone was worth a second hand car. But now her jacked up leg meant she hated to wear skirts or leggings, mainly sticking to joggers or loose canvas pants that reminded her of fatigues, her general lack of giving a shit and exhaustion made makeup and evening bathing regularly difficult, and her hair cropped just below her chin was the shortest it’s been since what her high school friends dubbed ‘the electric clipper incident of 2006.’ 

She managed to make it into the house and only paused long enough to take off her shoes before going into her bedroom and collapsing on the bed. The process of removing the leg was as simplified as possible but she only had the energy to releas the straps, leaving the wrap on stump, which wasnt that aweful of a thing, it functioned like a compression sleeve and helped with the swelling. She made the walk three times a week but some days were harder than others and today it had taken all her energy. She didn’t even manage to pull the covers over herself before falling asleep. 

\---

Peggy woke up with her heart pounding and teeth clenched. She’s covered in cold sweat and feels She doesn’t have nightmares, she doesn’t. Just stress dreams. She’d had stress dreams her whole life, before enlisting it was just random dreams about her day when things got too stressful. After enlisting was one recurring dream where she’s waiting at a bus stop for some undefined amount of time that made her wake up grinding her teeth. After the ied she has another recurring stress dream. 

Stress memory.

Whatever. 

It’s not dark yet, and she wasn’t hungry but she couldn’t fall back to sleep so Peggy dragged herself out of bed to the bathroom to take a shower, not even bothering to put on the leg, but tucking it under her arm along with her clothes. She was directly across the hall from the bathroom so it wasn't so hard to hop across to the bathroom which had a movable stool that helped her maneuver around the small room.

When she got done her mom was home and just finishing dinner. She gave a small tight smile that meant Amanda Carter was expecting a fight. That was not a good sign. Peggy was really really not hungry but she could read the situation well enough to know her mom was gonna bring up something that she thought was gonna set Peggy off. Maybe sitting down and having family time would buy Peggy some goodwill. Because she can’t always control what she says when she gets angry, she just finds herself flying into a rage and saying whatever hot hateful thing that comes into her mind. Sometimes it feels like she doesn’t even have control over it, incapable of walking away before it gets to that point, So maybe showing her mom that she is trying will help whatever's going to happen next.

Peggy’s mom told her all about her classes, the new principal who is a bit of a jackass and who was screwing around with various programs, that worked just fine, which got both Peggy and her mom riled up. Her mom tried to get Peggy to eat, but she was really not hungry, instead she pretended to be content to watch her mom eat. It’s actually better she wasn’t hungry because it’s a dish involving fish and brown rice and neither were really Peggy favorite foods. But her mom stopped making only Peggy’s favorite foods about four months after she got back, mainly because Peggy asked her to.

The lack of exercise and the amount of alcohol she’d been drinking back then made her put on twenty pounds. In two months. Now that she’s stopped drinking, she’s lost that weight, but still her body wasn’t what it was before. One thing though, Peggy had bigger hips and thighs than she used to but learning to work without her leg gave her core the workout of a lifetime. Even in the service her abs had been hard but mostly invisible, but now she was on her way to a six pack. She had mixed feelings about it, because on one hand it looked good, but on the other she stilled wanted to be the way she was before.

Before she’d been effortlessly graceful in the way that only a lifelong athlete could, now she felt clumsy and slow, even the parts of her unaffected by injury felt weird now that she knew how her body could betray her. Sometimes it made her want to crawl out of her own skin. But mainly it’s forced her to think about the way she eats in a way she never really had to before. Especially if she wants to maintain her club sandwich/pie diet three days a week. She exercised, she had a friend, a guy who can’t really do any hard core cardio and the one who introduced her to the idea of swimming for exercise in the first place, they go to the pool and swim laps until their muscles are shaky and endorphins are high, but Peggy will never forget how it feels to run. 

It sucks knowing exactly what you lost.

So her mom made mostly diet food for dinner, and most of it was good but sometimes it was fish and brown rice. Not even good fish, tilapia which tastes like everything that Peggy hates about fish, and has terrible texture too. So not like she’s gonna miss out not eating dinner tonight.

Amanda waited until dinner is done and Peggy has taken care of putting away the leftovers and washing the dishes before she made her move. She pulled several brochures out of her work bag, sits at the kitchen table, and said “We need to talk.”

So Peggy went and sat at the table and concentrated her hardest on not getting defensive about whatever is going to come next.

“Pegs, you know I love you, and I love having you here but I’m worried. You hardly do anything, I know it’s hard for you to keep a normal schedule but you don’t keep a schedule at all, all you do is go to that diner and go swimming with Steve, and I’m not saying that those are bad things sweetheart, or that you should stop, but it’s been two years, you need to do something. This isn’t you, and you’re in a rut, you need to do something with your life, you need to move on.”

Peggy tried not to feel defensive, but that evil fucking bastard voice in her head whispers ‘you’re lazy and worthless and she wants you gone.’ Still she tried to stamp it down and be reasonable.

“What do you mean?” She did a pretty good job of not sounding like she’s teetering on belligerence.

“I mean it’s time you did something honey. You had a plan for your life but that didn’t work out, now it’s time to start something else, do something else.” She spreads out the brochures. “These aren’t your only options but the way I see it you’ve got three choices, work, school, or individual therapy and, and not or, alcoholics anonymous and group therapy more than once a month.” 

She looked nervously at Peggy as Peggy looked warily at the brochures. 

“I don’t think--” Peggy starts but her mother interrupted her.

“Listen, if you’re not doing something, not working towards something, I don’t think you can keep living here.” It’s an empty threat, it’s written all over her face that this has come at the tail end of conversations about enabling that she had with her cronies at al-anon and her families of veterans support group. It’s an empty threat but it’s still a threat.

“So what you’re gonna kick me out.” Peggy bit out, still trying to hold on to the increasing irrational anger that’s bubbling in her stomach. She’s a grown ass adult, she’s a grown ass adult that used to handle other grown ass adults for a living, she could handle a conversation with her goddamn mother. “Where am I supposed to go? Go live with dad?”

Living with her dad was not even an option. Well he’d take Peggy but it’d end in murder, one of them would kill the other one. The two of them living together would be like putting gunpowder and matches in a storage container and then giving it a thousand good shakes. Explosive. It’d been like that before Peggy had gotten PTSD and now that her fuse was about two miles shorter she hadn’t seen her dad for longer than two hours at a time. 

“No! I’m not kicking you out, all I’m saying is that I’ve been reasonable and I’m not asking for much, just that you do something, that you make progress towards something. You used to be so ambitious..and now, well you’re wasting away Peggy.”

“I used to be a lot of things!” Peggy snapped, before trying to rein in her anger again. 

Peggy’s mom gave a shaky sigh.

“Listen I’d prefer you’d chose therapy, or school even, and I’ll give you some time to think about things but I’m serious, something has got to change Peggy. You can’t just live with me and use disability to buy pie, you’ve got to do something with your life. Take your time, maybe you can call Steve and talk to him about it. I’m gonna go, I’ve got to get back for parent teacher conferences, I won’t bring this up again until Sunday, I love you.”

She’d said the whole thing in one breath, then she got up, leaving the brochures, and left. 

Peggy looked at the brochures, there was one for a veterans job recommendation website, a couple for therapy and substance abuse programs, and a couple for local colleges and online schools. She felt itchy. 

She texted Steve if he wanted to go swimming and after a couple of minutes he agreed and said he’d pick her up in a half hour.

\---

Peggy had actually met Steve because of her jacked up leg. After going through the LOD investigation where it was determined that yup, Peggy couldn’t have actually done much to avoid the bits of truck that embedded themselves in her. The process was then started for her getting discharged and military benefits and all the fucking VA shit, and she’d be assigned an advocate to help her through that. One part ass kicker, most parts social worker, 100% tiny bucket of determined rage, Steve Rogers was assigned to her and surprisingly the two of them had gotten on like a house on fire.

They had remained in touch and became friends even after he’d wrapped up her case. Now they swam at least twice a week together. Peggy really didn’t feel like quite the same person she had been before, couldn’t quite connect to the friends she’d had before deployment. But Steve had never known who Peggy used to be, just knew who she was now, like who she was now. Peggy liked that.

He picked her up in his tiny hyundai for which Peggy gave him all the shit, mostly cause she was jealous she could no longer drive herself anywhere. He gave her a small sardonic smile as she carefully swung her hunk of plastic into the car and settled into the seat.

“How’s life?” 

“My mom’s gonna kick me out of her basement Steve,” She told him, putting a sarcastic spin on the words to hide the fact that this was something that was deeply freaking her out. “She says I gotta get off my ass and get a job.”

Steve pulled out of the driveway and drove them towards one of the few 24 hour gyms with a pool, the only one probably. He shot her a quick serious look with one eyebrow cocked as if to say ‘I really doubt that’s what she said.’

“Or go to school or therapy, basically she said I gotta do something with my life or she’s kicking me out.”

“Wow what a bitch.” He put just the right neutral inflection in the words. 

“Fuck off Rogers, if you’re not on my side I don’t want to talk about this with you.”

“I’m always on your side Pegs, but so’s your mom, maybe you should think about what you’d like to do, job, school, or otherwise.”

Steve was, a less obnoxious than her mother, but still quietly pressuring vote for therapy.

All Peggy said back was to hum in disagreement and then change the subject to talk about seeing Angie earlier, which caused Steve to roll his eyes. He couldn’t say shit though because if he did she’d give him shit about a certain friend over which Steve had been pining for years. 

She swam in the pool until her arms were sore and Steve had been finished for twenty minutes, sitting on the side shivering slightly. The first time she'd been all twisted up about people seeing her stump as she took off her leg and wrap by the pool and even more freaked to leave it at the thought of someone messing with it. Now she was mostly desensitized, still hated it when people stared but Steve didn't and fuck every other person if they were rude assholes.

They were both quiet on the way home, it was dark out and Steve knew how the dark made her tense and watchful. Which was fucking bullshit in her opinion, it had been broad fucking daylight when the road under the humvee had blown up but for some reason her crazy brain decided that a deep mistrust of the dark was gonna be a problem for her. 

He dropped her off at home and she went straight to her room, not even stopping to see if her mom was home or up. Then Peggy changed her mind and went back and grabbed the brochures and took them back to her room. One by one she read and then crumpled them up, then she uncrumpled the school ones and looked at them considering before she pulled out her laptop to start googling. 

There was really nothing else to do in the night anyways. TV was always bad and she’d exhausted the good series on netflix. Might as well start considering options for the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lack of Angie but sometimes you just gotta do plot stuff. She'll be in the next chapter. It'll be a good time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peggy makes a choice. Stuff happens, old friends reconnect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. So. Confession time, it's been so long since I worked on this fic that I kind of forgot the original plot so this chapter is basically me finagling this fic back on track for a brand new plot which I wrote down so I won't forget. Not much Angie in this chapter because of the finagling but she's coming. There will fluff, and feels, and gay drama, and maybe even a little bit of smut. I didn't have a computer for the longest time but now I do so I don't think I'm going to pull another disappearing act, but on the safe side I'm gonna say that this fic will update about once a month. So thank you if you're sticking with it and it's cool if nah, you can always come back and read it when its all finished.

It’s not like Peggy had no idea what she wanted to do outside military life, there had been several roads not taken that she had played around with during her years at university. But she had been pretty set on the marines, had wanted to make her father proud, and she wasn’t the biggest patriot that ever lived but she liked the idea of being tough, and driven, and part of something bigger than herself. She had briefly thought about working in law enforcement, FBI if she could get it, or a handful of other regimental type careers, the structure and order was appealing and familiar after growing up a military brat. The problem now was her leg, almost all of what she’d be qualified or interested in as a career required an able body, something she’d never have again. On her good days that was what she told herself was holding her back.

On her bad days she acknowledged the truth. What was the fucking point of trying to start some new career when she was reasonably certain she wasn’t long for this world. There wasn’t some sort of solid plan or even a timeline outside of vague thoughts of her only being able to stand a few more years like the past couple. It’s just like the nasty little voice, or the ever present paranoia and bitterness, there was dark little part of her that stated in no uncertain terms that if things didn’t change she’d rather be dead than continue on. And really, thoughts of suicide where sometimes very comforting in a fucking morbid sort of way, the acknowledgment that the pain in her legs, and pain of losing who she was, wasn’t permanent. It would come to end as soon as she figured out a foolproof way to off herself without be a pathetic inconvenience.

The only person who’d really miss her was her mother. Her dad might be sad but well he’d move on. The handful of friends she had left over would probably come to the service. But her mom was Peggy’s only real thing tying her to life. That and she hadn’t quite figured out how to kill herself without ruining someone’s day with her corpse and she wasn’t that much of a depressed asshole yet.

So yeah, future plans hadn’t really seemed necessary but now Peggy sat down to consider her options. As much as it was the last thing she really wanted to do, she owed her mother enough to do at least one thing out of the brochures so she mights as well start exploring her options. She first looked into work, giving the vet job board a cursory scan but not seeing anything that she both wanted to do and could do with her fucked up leg. She didn’t particularly care for the idea of AA and therapy, she already went to a group on occasion, but she was surly and combative for no fucking reason so it hadn’t done her a whole world of good, she was pretty sure she’d be the same on an individual scale. So that left school, which was arguably the best choice considering her GI bill benefits. 

A cheap way to fuck around until she checked out. Or something changed. She didn’t have to be totally sold on suicide all of the time. She had a B.S. in History with a dual minor in Information technology and International Relations in anticipation of a military based career and she had enjoyed that, really loved her most of her classes. She figured some sort of masters degree, something in that field, not information technology, or least straight that because those had been her least favorite classes. History though, or International Relations, or Poly Sci in general, she could see enjoying that, could see taking that to a desk job in some government agency if she actually stuck around long enough to complete it. Hell she might enjoy getting the degree enough to not be bitter about no longer being able to have career involving any sort of fieldwork. 

Probably not though.

She took a break to do her physical therapy exercises, a workout designed by her pt trainer to improve balance, range of motion, and replace muscle mass plus improving her balance. When she first got done healing, Peggy had been barely able to walk without crutches or a walker, but now thanks to the daily exercises and the tapering down appointments, she could largely walk on her own. When you lose a significant part of your body it can feel like relearning to walk and move all over again according to her physical therapist. She felt foolish for hoping for anything more than that, so she tried not to. But sometimes she had good dreams where she didn’t even limp. Fuckin’ stupid, like a hunk of beige plastic could ever be an adequate replacement.

But whatever.

Peggy had never really gotten good at predicting her bad days. She hadn’t even really felt that irritated or upset as she dicked around on the internet so she was blindsided by the pure irritation bordering on fury she felt when she heard her mom’s alarm go off at around five in the morning. It’s not like she didn’t know it was coming, it was the same time her mom got up every morning. But really it was really fucking inconsiderate of her to have her alarm up so loud.

The angry irrational thoughts spiraled from there, until Peggy was worked up in a self righteous fury. She was hanging on by a thread from storming out there to yell at her mother who the small rational part her told her had done nothing wrong. But the fact that she’d done nothing wrong just pissed Peggy off more because it made Peggy the bad guy, the fucking crazy person who can’t even react to normal shit in a normal fucking way and just. fuck.

Peggy’s emotions had always been rather nebulous things. It was probably the combined result of growing up her father's daughter and in the closet, desperate to not feel what she felt. Not helped by the fact Colonel Harrison Carter would never be what be considered progressive by any definition. But her emotions were always things that didn't require her active participation or attention until she was smack dab in the middle of them. More than once she'd been accused of being emotionally constipated right up until an explosion. So it was not really a surprise that Peggy was absolutely useless at predicting bad days until she was already seething with irrational anger.

But it didn’t make her any less angry.

It was finally light out so as soon as her mom was gone Peggy went and took four nyquil tablets and went to sleep off her bad mood. It was a Wednesday so it wasn’t like she had any place to be really.

\--

A week later and she was still undecided as to what she wanted to do. 

Okay no, that was lie, Peggy knew what her best option was, she just didn’t really want to admit it. Didn’t want to admit she’d made up her mind. The fact of the matter was, that even though she’d be resisting therapy from literally everyone who suggested it, she knew her routine wasn’t exactly working. She couldn’t seem to find a job, she was living with her mother, she had lost her driver’s license and had exactly one friend.

She remembered the bright put together girl she used to be and hardly recognized herself now in comparison.

Her one bright spot of the week was pining after a diner waitress from afar.

So change was necessary and therapy was a start.

Steve picked her up for their weekly swim session and the first thing she said as she climbed into his tiny car is “If I hear a told you so Rogers I’m gonna punch you in the ribs.”

“Oookay. What did I not tell you so?”

“I need a new group to go to, and also maybe the number of a therapist.”

There was a long pause where Steve frowned at the road in a very odd way.

“Peggy, you know you’re one of my few friends over on this side of the country right?”

“Steve, please don’t make this weird. Lets just go swimming.”

“Okay,” Steve cleared his throat, “By the way I bought the new Batman movie, the one that gave you a seizure over Wonder Woman’s thighs, you wanna watch it after we’re finished.”

“Rogers, that sounds positively delightful.” 

The swimming seemed to settle Peggy, that and actually telling someone her plans for therapy which meant she’d have to follow through. Steve told her all about the latest Bucky developments which was that Bucky was coming to stay with Steve for an extended amount of time. Steve practically gushed about Bucky possibly moving to Oregon, that made Peggy feel nervous and protective of her friend. 

Carrying a torch was one thing, but carrying a torch for his straight best friend who he still had yet to come out to and would be living with, that was a whole new level of yikes. 

As level headed and smart as Steve was, Peggy did not think he had the most logical thought process when it came to his friend Bucky. As much as she was not Steve’s best friend, everyone would always be second to Bucky according to Steve, Steve was hers and that was another reason to get her head screwed on straight, so that when things blew up in Steve’s face she could be a shoulder to lean on instead of another source of stress. 

After the movie Steve gave her a ride home and just before he pulled away from the curb after dropping her off a message came on her phone containing a support group and a name of a therapist who Peggy noticed also had the name of Carter. Small world. 

When she informed her mother that she had contacted both Carter and the facilitator of the group Peggy had to pretend not to see the tears in her eyes because if she acknowledged them she’d probably get annoyed.

\--

The Tuesday of the first group both Steve and her mother joined her at the 9th Street Diner for her afternoon ritual. They were trying to be supportive, Peggy knew that, she understood but it still rankled under her skin the way that they were intruding on her private time.

A woman had a right to eat pie and blush in peace goddamnit.

But she knuckled down and got through it without even one nasty comment. Mainly so Angie could see she knew other people, she had friends, she wasn’t a lonely weirdo.

Which, okay she definitely was but that was aside from the point. 

\--

The group facilitator was not who Peggy expected. He was gruff retired army Colonel named Chester Phillips. She hadn’t been expecting a hippy therapist cartoon straight out of a hollywood movie but she also had not not been expecting that either.

That wasn’t the biggest surprise though, the biggest one was when a droll voice came from her left.

“Well would you look at that, is that Captain Carter, it had been a minute Ma’am.”

Peggy couldn’t stop her delighted grin as she turned and saw Jim Morita, a navy sergeant that had been stationed on the same ship that had been her base.

“Sergeant Morita. And here I was thinking that by staying in Oregon I’d be safe from the likes of you. What are you doing up here in the north?”

The man had never been shy about talking about his home state of California, so much so that his nickname among the enlisted men had been ‘Fresno.’

“Drowning in all the rain, obviously. I helped found a security company that’s here.”

Before he could say more the facilitator gave a five minute warning to let people get to their seats. 

Morita quickly gave her a business card that declared “Commandos” with his name and contact info.

“Give me a call and we can catch up.” He said as he turned to go to his seat.

Peggy slipped the card into her pocket where it sat like a ten pound weight of all her inadequacies and failures as a human being.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumber at [agentlesbiancarter](http://agentlesbiancarter.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> Idk where I'm going with this. But it's gonna be a thing. Because foul mouthed Peggy lusting after Angie is everything I need in my life.


End file.
